{healthy is as healthy does...?}

I made caramels today. for no other reason than that a. i wanted to, and b. I've been craving apple cider caramel for a while, now. 

it took me some time,  though, to get around to them. i would have made caramel over a week ago, but dressing room mirrors and head-voices are vicious, and quite frankly, i didn't want to 'get fat'. 

i've heard people compare eating disorders to a toxic ex-boyfriend, because no matter how long it's been, they come around and sometimes, suddenly, no matter how wonderful life is without them, you can't breathe with how badly you want it back. 

because this whole healthy eating thing is hard, and it's unfamiliar and strange and so hard, and even though the toxicity kills, it's familiar and God knows sometimes life races on so fast and so new and so constantly changing that you would give anything for one day of the old familiar control.  

and some stores only work when you're a certain body type, and some clothes simply won't fit when you aren't starving yourself into them, and the thing that often kills me about my job is that it's one thing to discount perfect model pictures online as 'photo-shopped', but what do you do when they are standing right in front of you ordering off the menu hanging above your head? 

and i have come too far and fought too hard to turn around and throw it all away, but there have been days within the past week which were easier to manage on an empty stomach, and while i love my work dearly, 5am shifts have quickly crowded out what little devotional time i had. 

the typical response to 'i'm fat' is either a scoffed 'no, youre not!' or, my personal favorite, well-meaning advice regarding diet and that i ought to  'just eat healthy and workout', since no one seems to realize that working out or conventionally defined "healthy" eating isn't always an option for a girl wrestling with an eating disorder, because it will turn destructive. 

now, normal people usually mean that if i wish to feel better about myself, i ought to start running/weight-lifting/their personal exercise of choice, and eating more fruits and vegetables.

it is never quite that banal for me.

i either over-exercise, or under-eat, and usually both. 

for instance, last summer i destroyed my knee through excessive running. and, when i say excessive, i mean... running over ten miles per morning within a month of starting running, almost no rest days, and a tendency to deny myself food unless i had gotten in my run for that particular day. 

i literally wouldn't eat unless i had gone running. 

i've tried the "healthy eating" thing, too. It turns into counting calories and an unhealthy obsession with what my brother affectionately calls 'rabbit food' (aka...cucumbers and lettuce). i didn't eat protein. i wouldn't eat anything i didn't know the calorie count for, and absolutely refused to eat over 1000 calories per day. 

...all this while running....or frenetically doing crunches after my sister fell asleep because i had to work off the calories i had eaten that day. 

but I've come to a conclusion lately, that certain things aren't optional if I intend to function as a person. 

these are things like morning devotions, naps, runs, water, and healthy food. 

and by healthy? i don't mean just fruits and vegetables. 

because lately i've come to the conclusion that our definition of healthy eating isn't necessarily healthy. or good. and that weight loss shouldn't actually be the end goal of exercise. and while i've half known this mentally, i'm just starting to put it into practice.

see, the Apostle John, while writing to the churches, says that he is praying that they may prosper and 'be in good health', but, he adds, 'even as your soul prospers'. 

because there is so much more to health than the physical. 

i'll say it again. 

health is not solely defined by what you look like on the outside. 

health is a measure of the over-all well being of your entire person: emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, relationally. 

health isn't necessarily defined by what you do. it's defined by why you do it. 

therefore, if i am eating salads because i think i'm fat, because i hate myself, and isolating myself behind the familiar self-loathing, then that is not the healthy choice. 

conversely, if my entire family is sharing a meat, as in, mom made lasagna or something and everyone is actually sitting down to eat together, the healthy response would be to join in, instead of hiding in the kitchen with lettuce. 

today, the healthy response to my persistent craving for caramel was to make caramel, eat some, wrap up the rest, and now, craving satisfied, move on with life like a normal person instead of still stuck in the head-loop of 'must. not. eat.', which only makes me crabby and isolationist. 

yesterday i went for a run, my first all year, because work had been stressful, and i knew i was babysitting that night, and needed a little time outdoors. i walk/ran 20 minutes, and then came back inside. and tonight, i am going to sleep without doing the 50 squats on my work-out challenge, because i went running yesterday and this morning, and quite frankly, i don't need that. 

and when it comes to what it means to be healthy, i am learning to examine my motivation to determine whether i am being healthy or not. 

if i run because i need the fresh air, because it is time alone with God, because being out and moving invigorates me, and leave the mile-calculator behind, then it is in good health. 

but if i run because i think i'm fat, because my head is playing with me again, because i 'ate too much', then my motivation isn't health. it's fear.

if i make myself a salad because i'm craving green things, because they energize me and taste good, and because i simply want one, then my motivation is not based in sickness, but rather wellness. doing what is good for me on all levels, as opposed to trapped back into 'no sugar. no carbs. no fat. no more than 1000 calories a day'. 

and so often, i know, we tend to compare, and stereotype skinny and salads as healthy, when in reality, the size of your waist is not always an indicator of health. 

for me, today, healthy was making caramels and laughing with my little siblings. slipping outdoors at 5am to feel the morning on my skin and restraining myself from running too much too far too soon. healthy was fresh-baked bread and avocado asparagus salmon salad shared with a little brother who likes seafood almost as much as i do. 

and there's nothing inherently wrong with eating fruits and veggies, or working out. as a matter of fact, they are often beneficial. but for the love of God, salads aren't equivalent to health.

fruits and vegetables are good for you, yes, but there is no health in a miserable existence, tormented by the thought that anything other than salads and smoothies and green juice is unhealthy and therefore evil and must not be eaten. 

health - true health - encompasses the mind, soul, body, and spirit. 

it cannot be relegated to greens on a plate. 

{when a perfectionist and a latte collide}

"Hey...listen..." Dylan waits until I lift my head from my knees to face him. 

"forget about the expectations," he says firmly, a hand on my knee. "forget about what your dad or your boyfriend or anyone else expects, and just be. you're human like the rest of us. none of us is perfect, and all of us are perfect in our own way. but you can't always muscle yourself to perfection. your shoulders aren't broad enough to carry that weight. no one's are.  

"life is crazy and you don't always have to be in control. things will all work out. i have never seen anyone learn as fast as you have. you've gotten farther in under two weeks than most people do in months. so relax. it's okay. as long as you're satisfied with you, at the end of the day, that's all that matters." 

I have been gone long enough for him to run out and look for me, only to find me crouched on the ground behind the recycling bins, head buried in my arms, crying. 

see, most people don't cry over spilled milk, but...this perfectionist does. i recently started working at Uncommon Grounds, a coffee bagel shop in Saratoga, which is opening a new location up in Clifton Park, five minutes from my house. and i love my job. but, being the overachiever that i am, i have given myself absolutely no margin for error. 

i learned to make 'perfect' lattes and cappuccinos my first day of training, and it took me only two days before i was told i no longer needed to shadow anyone, because i knew what i was doing. 

but drawing latte art is harder than it looks. and i have spent all morning agonizing over it, wasting cup after cup of steamed milk and espresso. i have poured latte after latte within the space of the past two hours, and they are never quite perfect, and Dylan, who has been training the newbies meanwhile, points out that i am getting frustrated. he's right. 

he trained me last week. but the Clifton Park store opens on Monday, and while i can semi-draw in them, i still haven't gotten a perfect rosetta yet. it's not a requirement of the job, and while most people would shrug and move on and no one understands why this is such a big deal to me, i've been working at it for the past two hours, growing closer and closer to tears. 

Kat suggests i take a break, so i grab the crate of empty milk cartons, and take them out to the recycling bin, forgetting my coat in the process. instead of just dumping them in the bin and coming back inside, i lean against the huge trash can, safely hidden from view, and cry. 

by the time Dylan finds me, i am crouched on the ground, knees drawn up to my forehead. i can't get it perfect, and suddenly all the expectations of the past few weeks catch up with me, and yes i am having a meltdown, behind the recycle bins, over literal spilled milk. 

he comes and sits down next to me, puts a hand on my knee, asks what's wrong. i explain through tears that i can't get it right and it should be perfect but it isn't and what's wrong with me because i shouldn't even care and it's stupid but i need to make it perfect. 

he half-laughs. "I'm really glad you're working here, if only to break you of thinking that everything you do always has to be perfect. It's going to be harder for you than most people...because you've gotten away with being perfect for so long. but no one's perfect. and that's okay."

but it's not okay for me. it never has been. i have literally no chill.

i'm used to white-knuckling it, and the funny thing is that the harder you try, and the more tense you are, and the whiter your knuckles are....the less likely you are to be able to draw anything in your latte. you literally can not be tense and make latte art.

and see, everyone else is allowed to make mistakes, but not me. i do not require perfection of anyone else but myself. and one of the hardest things for me to adjust to over the past few days and my first week of work is that everyone's philosophy is that 'you learn by making mistakes'. 

i'm not used to that. i want a list of rules, and to be told not to break them. i'm not used to making mistakes and when anyone told me to do something differently next time, i would freak out because 'oh my gosh i did something wrong'.

but no one who corrected me cares like that. 

literally. you make a mistake. someone suggests what to do next time instead. and that's it. mistake forgotten. no big deal. 

Dylan explains. "you can't learn without making mistakes. learning requires comprehension and understanding, and doing it wrong a few times before you get it right. that's not the same as having a list of what you expect, and then just blindly doing."

but there are so many expectations on me right now, ranging from my GPA to my conduct around my boyfriend to learning how to drive, that i have no idea what to do when i cannot force perfection. 

and the worst part is...i should know this. 

it's not my job to be perfect. 

it's not my job to always have everything in order. to have everything under control. 

he's right. my shoulders aren't broad enough, and when i try to handle everything, i invariably break under the pressure. 

i can't make me perfect. but i am so used to just trying harder and gritting my teeth and white-knuckling my way into at least outwardly looking like i am fulfilling expectations, however unreasonable those expectations are. 

and honestly? it is unreasonable to expect myself to make the perfect rosetta within a single day. 

it is unreasonable to expect that between working 3-4 days a week and learning the ropes, i wouldn't be exhausted by the time i get home. 

it is unreasonable to expect that i will be able to seamlessly integrate a job that is almost full-time into my current schedule without time to adjust to full-time work on top of full-time school.

it is unreasonable to expect myself to learn how to drive within the space of an hour...or two...or even a month, honestly. 

it is unreasonable to expect myself to be perfect. 

and honestly? if i drive myself crazy trying to be perfect in and of myself...

where is the room for grace?

i texted a friend this week, in the middle of a panic attack because my GPA was literally .06 less than i wanted it to be, and she insisted that i give myself grace, but what if that is something that i have no idea how to do? 

and the entry in my devotional book is startling with its accuracy. 

"Here is the secret of Divine all-sufficiency, to come to the end of everything in ourselves and in our circumstances"....the passage is 2 Corinthians 12:10 'for when i am weak, then i am strong'....and my eyes fall on the previous verse. 

"But He said to me 'my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness', therefore i will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me" 

i don't have to be perfect. 

why? 

because if i white-knuckle myself into outward perfection, then no one - not even me - gets to see God's power. 

i've heard it said that perfectionism is the slowest form of suicide. but i would also add that perhaps....just perhaps...perfectionism is one of the greatest inhibitors to being able to see God's power drastically on display in our lives. 

because if I can make myself perfect....if we can just try harder and get it all right... then where is our need for Him? 

where is our need for His grace? 

the Apostle Paul boasted in his imperfections, because if God could use such a man as himself, then He could use anyone. 

because... if it isn't my job to be perfect, then maybe....maybe...i can just rest? breathe? let go of my white-knuckled control and remind myself that God is literally the only one in the universe capable of perfection? 

and if "freedom will come when you lay it down", then it's beyond time i laid down the pressure to be perfect and all the unnecessary unreasonable expectations that i and others place upon me down at the feet of Jesus and just let go. 

'we could be glorious if we'd just give up being gods'

because we aren't. i'm not. you're not. we are only human. and when we take His job upon ourselves, we will break because our shoulders weren't built to carry the weight of the world. 

and His burden is easy because it isn't my job to be perfect. it's my job to follow Him and do my best, and, as the old Keith Green song goes, He'll take care of the rest. 

'you just keep doing your best
and pray that it's blessed
and Jesus takes care of the rest' 

it's beyond time that i let Him. 

{in His time}

do you ever feel like you're missing out on something? 

like...everyone else gets to go on adventures and do grand things, but you're just...lonely and stuck and waiting for your life to change, but nothing's changing, and everything you do just seems to sink you further into hopelessness?   

well, for me, that was the majority of my teenage years. 

feeling like i was missing out on all the exciting things that my friends were doing. 

...namely: dating. 

see, when i was a kid, i looked forward to being a teenager. to going on adventures and having lots of friends and then getting married by 18. to have stories to tell my kids of my teenage years. to feel like i was living life. to be pretty and perfect and popular and stay out late with friends and go to prom and all the stereotypical teenager things. 

to take artsy pictures and wear sexy dresses and be a size zero and kiss in the rain and decorate my bedroom with pictures and lights and go camping under the stars and be wild and crazy and whatever i wanted to be.

so.... basically everything tumblr and teen flicks. 

needless to say, my life didn't turn out quite how I had imagined it. between overprotective parents and a pretty bad heartbreak and the fact that - let's face it - I wasn't allowed to date and my mom and I fought almost every day about my clothing choices.... my teenage years consisted of feeling like I was looking out a window, watching bright colored lives flash by, while mine felt a lot like...well...Rapunzel in Tangled.

I kept hearing stories of my friends falling in love and having perfect kisses and learning to drive and getting jobs and sneaking out for midnight rendezvous' with their significant other, and copious pictures with their best friends, and honestly? 

i was jealous. really, really jealous. 

and not in a...I wish they didn't have that....but in a wistful, longing, why can't I have that? what is so wrong with me that my life is like this, and theirs is...perfect? 

i thought that my teen years would be laughing till it hurt, falling in love with someone wonderful, growing up and becoming a woman, getting my first kiss, prom dates and summer love, having a bevy of friends, and being self-confident. 

instead, the majority of my teenage memories consist of spiraling into an eating disorder, battling severe depression (and honestly, often losing), crying myself to sleep night after night at 3am, losing almost all of my friends, abusive relationships, hiding my self-harm addiction, and then, eventually, trying to recover. 

so...by the time Fall of my 18th year rolled around, I had pretty much given up on the whole 'teenager' thing. I had come to terms with the realization that while others' lives might work like that...well...it just wasn't meant to be. Not for me, at least. i was fairly content to be single, and figured that, whatever happened, i could make it work.  

i had finally stopped looking for a relationship. 

{note: don't you just love how God wrecks our plans, the moment we give up on what we want and want to know what He wants for us?}

and wouldn't you know it... not two months later, i was in a relationship with a man who is everything I could ever have hoped. 

he's absolutely wonderful.

and, in retrospect, it's ironic that the things I thought i had missed out on -and spent most of my teen years pining for - i finally get to do. 

but. instead of all those experiences and memories and firsts happening with boys scared silly of commitment - who left as soon as the going got rough, and mistook lust and raging hormones for love... 

i get to do them with the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. 

first dates. staying up under starry skies talking till midnight. dancing in the rain and fighting and making up and going on adventures and cute things and happy things and planning-for-our-future things. 

and honestly? looking back, I'm glad. I'm really really super glad that God didn't give me what I wanted when I wanted it. I'm glad He waited for His timing, and while I still maintain that my guardian angel had a hell of a hard time with me and probably begged God for reassignment more times than I can count.. 

I didn't miss a thing. 

i just get to do everything most people do - in their early teens with people they won't end up with - in my late teens, instead, with the man i want to marry. 

and yeah. i wouldn't trade this for anything. 

it's special and it's perfect, and while it isn't always easy, nothing in life is free from difficulty, and I would rather work through things with my one and only, as opposed to flitting from one relationship to the other.

it brings us closer, and, if i'm honest, I've needed this reminder lately that God knows best and His timing is always perfect. 

He didn't give me what I wanted when I wanted it. He gave it to me when I was ready to receive it....when I had finally given up on my own ideas for my life. 

and, honestly? his timing is a million times better than I could have dreamed. 

see... if God could take the things I thought I had missed out on, and give them to me in His timing, so much more marvelous than they would have been had I grabbed them in mine... He is capable of doing that in every area of my life. 

which is really hard for me to accept, impatient person that I am, and the waiting is never easy when you still feel stuck, but...

the words of an old memory verse come to mind, as the snow blizzard-swirls outside my window. 

"He has made everything beautiful in his time..." (Eccl. 3:11).. He'll take the mess and the miserable waiting, and someday He will make it all beautiful, and He'll do it in His time. 

not mine. 

never mine. 

but that's okay. 

because I am seeing the difference between His timing and mine, and His is worlds better. 

and so, I am learning how to be patient. 

I am learning how to wait. 

4 Myths Christians Believe About Relationships

I suppose it's probably overstated to say that many of the things they teach you in Youth Group or those teen seminars on sexual purity aren't exactly accurate.

I should hope that we know by now that a woman's worth is way more than an intact hymen or how many people she has loved before. I should hope that we have stopped measuring a man solely by his sex drive, or seeing all males as simply testosterone-driven animals.  

But lately, in the process of attempting to navigate the turbulent waters of what the world thinks relationships ought to be, and all the unrealistic expectations of the Christian community, I've encountered yet more myths and false assumptions about relationships. 

such as the following: 

1. Kissing Before Marriage = Premarital Sex 

The argument goes something like this: kissing leads to making out. making out leads to getting caught up in the power of your desire, which leads to clothes off and touching each other intimately, which in turn unavoidably leads to sex. 

Um. Not true. 

You can kiss without having sex. You can kiss without making out or having your hands all over the other person. Heck, you can kiss the person you love, alone in the backseat of a car and not have sex. You can kiss them completely alone in a car at night without having sex or taking off your clothes...and that doesn't mean that you love and desire them any less. 

Kissing before your wedding day is neither Biblically mandated, nor Biblically prohibited. It's a grey area. An area of Christian liberty and Christ-like love. For some couples, kissing is merely a way of expressing affection, and for others it's far more of a temptation and turn on. Some people believe that kissing before marriage is inherently wrong. Others just don't do it from a desire to please those around them...or in order to earn spiritual brownie points by 'waiting till their wedding day to share their first kiss'.

However, kissing itself isn't inherently wrong. (1 Cor 6:12-18)

But see, the question isn't 'is kissing before marriage right or wrong for all couples ever across the board?' 

The question is 'Is kissing something we have God's blessing and approval for at this particular time?'

Ask yourselves 'Are we both walking in His Spirit to the point where we can sense His leading, and are we following it? And is our decision to kiss (or not kiss) for the sake of showing off how spiritual we are, or is it rooted in a deep desire to honor Christ in our lives?' 

Those are the questions we should be asking around this issue. Because... you and I, in our own power, can't keep ourselves from stumbling. But the power of God inside us can. Therefore, the question is... .are we living our lives in the power of Christ's indwelling Spirit? And are we following His guidance, living from His strength? 

Secondly.... 

2. Emotional Purity Is A Thing...And You Can Lose It

This one makes me angry. The argument is that, the more 'pieces of your heart' you give away, the less you will be able to love your spouse.. the more you love, the less love you will have left for the one you end up with. 

Therefore, if you are in a relationship, emotional purity ambassadors advocate remaining distant and unattached. After all, you don't know for sure that you will marry this person, therefore, be afraid of vulnerability. Be afraid of opening up. Be afraid of trusting and being open with the person you are in a relationship with.

But.. you cannot. You cannot live an entire relationship in fear of caring for the other person. Relationships mean care. Relationships entail a deep concern for the other person. They necessitate trust. And if the greatest commandment is to love as you have been loved, then how will cutting yourself off from love fulfill that command? 

Additionally.. if your first relationship is expected to be your last...how are you supposed to know if you are truly in love, or merely infatuated? The difference is not always evident, especially to the one who is smitten. I thought I was going to marry the first man I thought I was in love with... turns out, I didn't even truly love him anyways. I was infatuated and under his spell, sure. But I wasn't truly in love with him. I believed myself to be, but now I know that marrying him would have been the biggest mistake of my life. 

Sometimes you have to live and love and learn... and God will teach you through the circumstances of your life. Sometimes attempting to spare yourself pain will instead bring greater pain later. 

Myth number 3... 

3. Setting rules will keep you pure. 

'How can a young man keep his way pure?' the Psalmist asks. 

For most Christians, the answer is to try harder....to set rules....to throw  up a detailed list of do's and don'ts and rules and regulations in order to muscle their way through this minefield of a temptation ground. 

However, the Scripture's answer isn't more man-made rules. 

'How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Your word' (Ps. 119:9)

Man-made rules can be loopholed. They can be worked around and discarded and broken. And they are definitely not what is going to keep you in the will of God. 

But a deep desire for more of Jesus...a hunger for His holiness in your life...the promises of His word running through your head and heart....the Spirit of God living inside you, stopping and keeping you from anything not in your best interest? 

That is what will keep your way pure. Living out the love and life of Christ in all your interactions. Immersing your entire existence in the word of God. 

And, lastly, for the fourth and final point... 

4. You can make or break your own purity. 

Okay... Sex is not evil.

Again, for the people in the back: Sex is not evil. 

You are not inherently pure up until you have sex, at which point you are suddenly 'impure' and tainted. That is utterly and completely false. 

We, as humans, are inherently impure. Christ cleanses us when we receive Him, and imputes His purity to us. We did not make ourselves pure. We can't lose what has been given to us by Him. 

Now, this doesn't mean that there aren't things ordained in His order for certain times and seasons. We don't have snow in the middle of July. Its season is winter. Likewise, the place and the season for sex is within marriage.

But sex itself isn't evil. It isn't something dirty and defiling. It is a beautiful gift from God. Yet in the same way that snow is a beautiful gift from God, and the seasons are set in His timing, there would be something seriously wrong if the leaves were to fall in Springtime. Likewise, the wrongness in premarital sex is that it is outside of His ordained time and place. 

Now, there's a whole other issue of motive, where lustful f---ing is not part of God's design for sex as the highest mutual expression of love and intimacy, and is sinful even within marriage. 

But waiting for marriage to have sex doesn't make you inherently pure. Being raped or having sex before marriage doesn't make you inherently impure, damaged, destroyed, or dirty. 

Your relationship with Christ makes you pure. His cleansing blood is what washes us whiter than snow, and imputes to us a purity not our own - a purity all His. 

It's His power that then enables us to walk in the newness of life He has given us, to live worthy of His unmerited grace, to not grieve His Spirit by blatant disobedience. 

This doesn't mean we now have carte blanche to go ahead and sin without remorse. But it does mean that we can't make ourselves pure. We can't, in our own power, strong-arm ourselves into purity. Only His power does that. Only through His Spirit's indwelling can we ever hope to lead pure and Godly lives. 

We don't keep ourselves pure by setting more rules and making more man-made laws, and shaming and guilt-tripping people into not struggling outwardly. 

We keep ourselves pure by keeping ourselves in Him. He is pure. He is our purity. And if we are in Him, and no sin can abide in Him, then the closer we grow to Him, the more sin will grow repulsive to us, and holiness will be what we crave. 

If Christ lives in us, then He is pure in and for us. If it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us, then it is not our job to grit our teeth and try harder to be pure. 

It is our job to submit to the Spirit's leading....follow His direction...surrender wholly to His authority, and walk in the purity, strength, endurance, and freedom of His rule. 

It is our job to run as hard and as fast as we can towards Jesus.. and everything else will fall into place.